by Linda Turner
Blinking sleepily, she frowned at the fingers he held right in front of her nose. “How many?” he growled.
“Two,” she said, and only just then noticed that the house was ablaze with lights and surrounded by what looked like every vehicle in the county. Startled, she sat up abruptly and instantly regretted it when her head felt as though it was going to fall off her shoulders. “Oh, God!” she groaned, and grabbed her head.
“Easy, sweetheart. There’s no reason to be alarmed. We’re just having a little party for my mother’s birthday.”
“Birthday?”
“Don’t sound so horrified. You’re not intruding on some kind of exclusive family gathering. My mother throws herself a party every year and opens the house up to whoever wants to come. I would have invited you myself last week, but I forgot all about it until this afternoon when I left you to talk to Mom about you staying here for a while.”
“You hit her with that when she was getting ready for a party for half the county? Oh, no, Zeke!”
“Will you stop?” he said, laughing. “When you get to know my mother, you’ll realize she takes everything in stride. She didn’t even blink at the thought of a houseguest. In fact, she’s really looking forward to getting to know you. So calm down, okay? Everything’s going to be fine.”
Marveling that he could say such a thing with a straight face, Elizabeth could only groan. The man obviously didn’t have a clue that this was hardly the circumstances under which she wanted to meet his mother.
“But it’s a party, Zeke! And I can’t walk in there looking like this.” She cringed at the very idea. Her sweater stained with blood and her head bandaged, she looked as if she’d just escaped from a war zone. “Look at me. I’m a mess! My suitcase was left in my car, and even if I had something to change into, I’m not in any kind of shape to socialize with people. I think I’d cry if I even had to try.”
She didn’t mean to complain, to be a whiny baby, but she was exhausted, her defenses shattered. Silent tears spilled over her lashes to trail down her cheeks, and she didn’t even have the strength to blink them away. Sniffing, she slumped against him and laid her aching head against his shoulder.
With a quiet sound, he shushed her and eased his arms around her. “Shhh. It’s okay, baby. Nobody expects you to join the party, especially my mother. I’m sure Joe has told her by now what’s happened and she’s already got a room ready for you upstairs. I’ll take you up the back stairs and you won’t even have to see anyone. Okay?”
He made it sound so easy. And she was so tired. “Your mother’s going to think I’m horrible,” she murmured as her eyes drifted shut. “What kind of guest sneaks up the back stairs?”
“The kind my mother will love,” he said softly, but she didn’t hear. Limp in his arms, she was already asleep.
Given the chance, he would have held her the rest of the night, but that wasn’t an option. She needed to sleep, and Nick was waiting for him at the office. So he eased her the rest of the way into his arms and carried her up the back stairs to the old bedroom he’d had as a child. Just as he’d suspected, his mother had the covers pulled back invitingly on the bed and a light softly burning on the nightstand.
“There you are,” his mother whispered, letting herself into the room just as he gently laid Elizabeth on the bed. “Joe thought he heard you drive up. How is she?”
“Lucky to be alive,” Zeke replied quietly, and gave her a rundown of Elizabeth’s injuries. “She was afraid she was going to ruin your party.”
“Oh, Zeke, the poor girl! As if that’s important after all she’s been through tonight.” Fussing over her, she helped Zeke get Elizabeth’s shoes off, then pulled the covers up over her. “Do you know who did this to her?”
He nodded grimly. “I’ve got a pretty good idea. Nick and I are going to question him as soon as I get back to town.” Needing to leave, but reluctant to let Elizabeth out of his sight, he reached down to gently brush her hair back from her face. “The doctor says she needs to be watched.”
“I’ll talk to Janey,” Sara assured him. “She’ll check in on her. We all will. If there’s any change, we’ll get her to the hospital immediately.”
He’d known he could count on his family, known they would protect Elizabeth as if she was one of their own. No one would harm her while she was in their care. But just hearing the words allowed him to shift a load of worry from his shoulders. “Thanks, Mom,” he said gruffly, and pulled her into his arms for a fierce hug. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Just be careful,” she cautioned softly as she followed him to the door. “We don’t want anyone else getting hurt.”
That wasn’t going to happen. At least not to him. He wasn’t, however, making any promises about Chester Grant. After what he’d done to Elizabeth, the bastard deserved whatever he got.
Chester lived in a small, wood-sided house two blocks from his shop. As ratty looking as his garage, the house was little more than a shack that should have fallen down years go. It listed to the right and appeared to be standing solely because of the front porch that anchored it to the ground.
Pulling up before it in his patrol car, Nick frowned at the cars that lined the street in front of the house. “What the devil’s going on? It looks like your mother’s not the only one having a party.”
Zeke snorted at that. “Chester have a party? If he keeps his house anything like he does his garage, it’s a wonder it wasn’t condemned years ago. I can’t imagine too many people wanting to step foot in that kind of grunge, let alone party in it.”
Despite that, there was no question that the man had company. Every window in the house was ablaze, and when they approached the front door, they could hear raucous male laughter from inside.
The sound of it grated on Zeke’s nerves like ground glass. He growled, “I hope he’s in there gloating over nearly killing Elizabeth. Then I can tear his head off his shoulders, and there’s not a jury in this country that would blame me.”
“Nobody’s tearing anybody’s head off,” Nick warned him. “Unless he does something stupid like try to resist arrest when we finally get enough evidence to nail his sorry butt. Then we do what has to be done.”
His lean face stony with purpose, he banged on the front door. “Open up, Chester,” he ordered sharply. “This is Sheriff Kincaid. I’ve got a warrant to search this place.”
Inside, silence fell like a stone, then they heard the scrape of chairs being hurriedly pushed back and men arguing in furious, panicky whispers. Nick and Zeke exchanged knowing glances. Without a word of warning, Nick stepped back, then kicked the door in. Guns drawn, they rushed inside. “Freeze!”
Zeke half expected to find Chester scrambling to hide the gun he’d used to shoot out Elizabeth’s front tire. Instead, he and five other well-known lowlifes in the county froze in the act of scooping up scattered cards and cash from the middle of the kitchen table and stuffing it into their shirts.
Immediately recognizing a poker game when he saw one, Nick swore and holstered his gun. “I ought to run the lot of you in. Dammit, Chester, the next time I tell you to open the door, you’d damn well better do it and be quick about it!”
“You didn’t have to kick it in!” he whined. “Now I’m going to have to get a whole new door.”
“Where have you been all night?” Zeke demanded. “And don’t say right here, because we know better.”
“But it’s true,” Carl Merchant said, frowning in confusion. “We started the game about four-thirty at the garage, then brought it over here when Chester closed up for the night. We’ve all been right here ever since.”
“And Chester never left to answer a call with his wrecker?” Nick asked suspiciously. “Or go to the store for more beer? He’s been here the entire time?”
The other men nodded. “Hell, I wish he had left,” Brian Ackers grumbled. “Maybe then the rest of us would have had a chance to win a hand or two. If I hadn’t brought the cards myself, I would hav
e swore he was playing with a marked deck. He’s been damn lucky.”
He’d been lucky, all right, Zeke thought, swearing under his breath. Too lucky. It had been his experience that a man like Chester, who didn’t have the brains God gave a rabbit, didn’t conveniently have an alibi right when he needed one unless he was warned in advance that something bad was about to go down.
“So just how long have you guys been getting together for a game or two?” he asked casually. “A couple of months? A year or so? What?”
“Today was the first time,” Carl answered innocently, not seeing the warning glance Chester shot him. “Though I guess it’ll be my last, once my wife finds out about this. You gonna arrest us, Sheriff?”
Studying the lot of them long enough to make them sweat, Nick finally shook his head in disgust. “Not this time. But if I ever catch you at it again, your wives won’t be the only ones you’ll have to worry about. Go on. Clear out.”
Given the opportunity, Chester would have slid right outside with his friends if Zeke hadn’t been standing at the door to stop him. “Oh, no, you don’t,” he said silkily. “You’re not going anywhere. We’ve got some business to conduct with you, a little search of the premises. If you’re lucky, the place’ll still be standing when we’re through.”
Heady with the success of his alibi, the other man gave him a smile that Zeke would have given anything to mop the floor with. “Go ahead,” he said flippantly. “I got nothing to hide.”
That, unfortunately, turned out to be the only truth that Chester Grant told all evening. Zeke and Nick went over the small house with a fine-tooth comb, and even went so far as to search the backyard to see if he’d buried anything that might link him to Napoleon’s death or the recent attacks on Elizabeth, but Chester was squeaky clean, at least when it came to evidence. After hours of searching, they found nothing but dirt.
Disgusted, they had no choice but to give up the search for the moment, but Zeke wasn’t about to admit defeat. He could smell the guilt all over the miserable little wretch. “Elizabeth Davis was almost killed tonight,” he said harshly. “She lost control of her car and ran off into a ravine.”
If he hadn’t been watching him closely, Zeke never would have seen the shock that flared just for a second in his eyes before he quickly recovered. “So?” he said with a shrug that might have been convincing if sweat hadn’t beaded his brow. “She’s not from around here. It’s not my fault she doesn’t know how to drive in the mountains.”
“I don’t know about that,” Nick said. “That depends on whether or not you knew the bastard who shot out one of her front tires. If you knew what he was going to do, and you did nothing to stop him, that makes you an accomplice to attempted murder. You could go to jail. And you weren’t even there.”
Zeke watched him turn green and gave the screw another twist. “I’d think about that if I were you, Chester. Paying for a crime you had nothing to do with, spending the rest of your life in a cage. Is that what you want?”
“N-no!” he stuttered.
“Then tell us what you know now,” Zeke pressed. “Work with us. We know you’re involved. Maybe you didn’t mean for things to go this far, but now it’s turned nasty and you’re caught up in something you didn’t plan on. You don’t have to let it ruin the rest of your life. Come clean now, and it’ll be a lot easier on you in the long run.”
For a moment, Zeke actually thought he was going to confess. Pale as a ghost, his skin clammy, he opened and closed his mouth like a fish, searching for words. Then, just when Zeke wanted to hit him on the back and tell him to spit out whatever was stuck in his throat, he took a step back, flattening himself against the wall.
“I don’t know nothing!” he cried desperately. “Why do you keep hounding me? You heard the guys. I was here all night playing poker. That’s it. End of story. I don’t know nothing about a wreck or a shooting or anything else. And that’s all I’m going to say!”
He meant it, and there was no getting anything else out of him. Stubbornly keeping his mouth shut, he refused to answer any more questions. Without any evidence to link him to Elizabeth’s wreck, Zeke and Nick were left with no choice but to leave. Warning him they’d be watching his every move, they stalked out, slamming the door behind them.
Left alone with his fear, Chester finally spoke. “No one was supposed to get hurt.”
The doctor was right, Elizabeth thought with a groan as she lay in bed the next morning and finally summoned enough energy to open her eyes. She did feel like she’d been flattened by a semi. Every bone in her body ached.
The night had passed in a blur. She had no memory of how she’d gotten upstairs and only vague memories of Zeke’s sisters helping her change into the pretty pink flannel gown she wore. His mother, too, had appeared at her bedside during the night to check on her, and once she thought she’d opened her eyes to find Zeke himself slumped in a chair next to the bed. But there was no one with her now, no chair next to the bed, and she couldn’t be sure she hadn’t imagined the whole thing.
Careful not to move her head and awaken the pain that had rumbled like thunder in her head for most of the night, she looked curiously around and realized that the room must have been Zeke’s as a child. There was a rock collection on the maple dresser, wildlife posters on the walls, and a bookcase full of books on everything from true crime stories to bald eagles to cowboys in the Old West. All too easily, Elizabeth could see him there as a boy with mischief in his eyes and holes in the knees of his jeans from playing with his brother on the ranch. He would have been a daredevil, a scamp, a tease who drove his sisters crazy.
Smiling at the image, she started to drift back to sleep to dream of him, when there was a quiet knock at the door. The tease himself poked his head around the door, saw she was awake and grinned. “So Sleeping Beauty’s awake. Good. You can eat breakfast with me.” And pushing the door open with his shoulder, he stepped into the room with a breakfast tray loaded with enough food to feed a small army.
Feeling anything but beautiful—she’d seen herself in the mirror and winced at the yellowing bruise that curled around her left eye—she still couldn’t stop her heart from fluttering at the sight of him. “You must have been the one who took a hit on the head last night if you think bruises are beautiful,” she said. Lifting her nose in the air, she sniffed delicately. “Something smells wonderful.”
“French toast, scrambled eggs, ham and hash browns,” he said promptly, and leaned over her to set the bed tray across her lap. “Since you missed supper last night, Mom thought you might be hungry.” His hands free, he held up three fingers in front of her face. “How many?”
She’d been asked that question so many times during the night that it had followed her into her dreams. Rolling her eyes, she grinned. “A hundred and five.”
“Aha. Somebody’s feeling better.” And before she could guess his intentions, he leaned over and gently kissed her.
With a quiet murmur of need, she pulled him close, poignancy tugging at her heart. Was this what it would be like to wake up in his bed morning after morning? she wondered. Slow kisses and quiet murmurs and the rest of the world far, far away? Her heart thudding, she desperately wanted to believe that it could be just like this for the rest of their lives. But she couldn’t. Because it was only a matter of time before another woman caught his eye, his attention. Her mother might have found a way to live with that, but she couldn’t. It would break her heart.
No, this was all they had, all they could ever have, and she couldn’t deny herself what precious moments they had left. Giving herself up to his kiss, she let herself float on the sweetness of it. When he finally let her up for air, she couldn’t have said if it was seconds or eons later. Limp, her arms draped around his neck, her heart thudding, she smiled into his eyes. “Good morning.”
He felt the kick of that smile all the way to his toes. “Good morning to you, too,” he growled, and just barely stopped himself from giving in to the temptation t
o kiss her again. God, she was beautiful! Battered and bruised and still weak as a kitten, she only had to smile to turn his heart over in his chest. And she didn’t have a clue what she did to him.
After his broken engagement he’d sworn that he would be old and gray before he’d ever let a woman get close enough to hurt him again, but he knew now that, right from the beginning, he’d never stood a chance of walking away from Elizabeth. With an ease that was staggering, she’d stolen his heart, and he couldn’t imagine life without her. She belonged here—in his family home, in the bed that I’d slept in as a child—but soon it would be time for them both to go back to their separate worlds, and he panicked at the thought. He wouldn’t, couldn’t lose her.
He almost told her then. He needed her to know just how much he loved her, but even as he opened his mouth to tell her, he realized that he couldn’t. Not now. Not when a member of his family could walk in on them at any time and he didn’t even have a ring for her. He had to give her time to heal, had to give himself time to make some plans. He intended to ask her to spend the rest of her life with him, and a man didn’t do that on the spur of the moment. That would be a memory they would both carry with them for the rest of their lives, and it had to be perfect.
Forcing himself to be patient, he drew back and said teasingly, “Enough of this, woman! You keep tempting me, and I’m going to crawl into bed with you, and then where will we be if my mother decides to come up here and check on you?”
She giggled, healthy color spilling into her cheeks. “I don’t know—you tell me. She’s your mother.”
“In hot water, that’s where. Now eat like a good girl so I know you really are feeling better.” And picking up her fork, he scooped up some eggs and held it up to her mouth.
Amused, she grinned. “I can feed myself.”
“So can I. So humor me.”
Without a word she opened her mouth.
